


Sun in the Night

by carriecmoney



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Animal Death, Cardverse, Gen, High Fantasy, Permanent Injury, Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-13
Updated: 2014-09-13
Packaged: 2018-02-17 06:22:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2299601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carriecmoney/pseuds/carriecmoney
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Is there something in the wind<br/>Breathes a chill in your heart and life in your wings<br/>Does it whisper 'start again'<br/>Start again</p><p>A brief story of a grunt saved by other grunts, and learning that they don't have to be just another card in the deck.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sunstepper

**Author's Note:**

> {A/N: I have begun my ventures into plopping the SnK kids down in old AUs of mine. This one is a fantasy world shaped after a card deck, blatantly stolen from Hetalia and modified to my needs over the last few years. If you wanna learn more about it, you can either check out the [tag on my tumblr for it](http://carriecmoney.tumblr.com/tagged/crr+money%27s+game+of+cards/) or the [page on my portfolio](http://www.carolinecash.com/cards.html). Just know that it's a world where the main forces are modeled after the four suits and you'll be... okay. As okay as you could be when it's high fantasy and barely even 7k words long. [tumblr](http://carriecmoney.tumblr.com) [](http://www.twitter.com/carriecmoney>twitter</a>%7D)

In the Kingdom of Clubs, the cavalry was drafted not by human, but by horse.

To the Queen that began it several generations ago, it made sense. There were always more horses than people in the nomad clans of the plains, and there was never such a thing as too many extra horses in an army. The owner of the drafted horse had a choice - stay with their clan, let the drafted horse be taken away and hope that the next pull was kinder to their herd, or follow the horse into the desert isthmus that was the Clubs-Spades eternal battlefield. Many more than an outsider would expect chose the latter. The way of the plains was tied to the saddle of a horse; to lose yours, to relinquish it to an unknown death under the legs of a stranger – that was more than most could bear. Choosing a favorite horse was like with children, though, and many nomads stayed with their herd until the last one was taken. For some, however, it was an easier decision.

Jean jumped down off of Sunstepper’s back, walking her through the standing circle to a place within earshot of the beaten center. She was his pride, his only friend after the passing of his mother several years ago (she’d ridden in the rain to nurse a pregnant mare and caught ill). He wrapped his arm loosely about her muzzle and scratched her blaze, an apricot star that matched her stockings, and turned his face to the focal of the ring. A striking blood bay was there, head down and pulling at the grass tufting out of the beaten earth. The man on her back was less imposing, but the giant Club stamped on his chest did the impressing for him.

Jean frowned and rested his cheek on Sunstepper’s. This was the third time in the last month the drafters had made their rounds of the plains markets. Was the southern situation truly that dire? What was the need to quarrel over a dead scratch of sandstone and dust, anyway?

The drafter pulled up the bay’s head from the grass and cleared his throat to call out the horse names, pulled randomly from the registry. (More motive for drafting horses over humans: horse births have always been better recorded than people.) Jean sighed and leant heavy on Sunstepper’s neck, letting the roll of Windchasers and Lightbringers and Stormbearers wash over him, eyes closed.

“Sunstepper of the Kirschstein clan!”

His eyes snapped open.

* * *

The sweet thing with having no connections to the earth is that it took Jean the greater sun’s rise to pack. The bitter thing is that he had no one to send him off. There were a few half-hearted waves as he led Sunstepper through the camp, some head nods, a scattered few bows at the waist, hands pressed to the stomach. Jean returned them, fingers digging in the boiling salt lake of his belly.

An old friend of his mother’s packed up some journeybread for him in a dirty napkin, handed it to him on the outskirts of camp. She smiled as she tucked it into his hands. “Swift ridings, my boy. May the wind bend before you.”

“And you as well, ma’am.” He slid the wrapped bread in his saddlebag. He frowned at the latch. “I don’t think I’ll be back.”

“I do not expect you to be.” She laced her fingers over her stomach, eyes still crinkled. “Try not to die too quickly.” Jean swallowed.

“I’ll do my best.” He returned her bow, the deepest of the day. She snagged the ends of his sash and kissed them before straightening.

“It’s not a mother’s luck, but it will have to do.” She smiled again; he ducked his head in a nod and vaulted onto Sunstepper’s back, not looking back as he set off south by the light of the two falling suns.

* * *

For the first month, joining the cavalry wasn’t that bad.

Yes, there was the training, for while Jean knew the basics of the sword and had a handle on a bow, he’d never touched a lance or a spear in his life. Slashing at a straw dummy was a lot harder on horseback – especially in his new, standard-issue mail coat and the spots of plate armor on his limbs. Everything felt heavy, but all of his fellows came from the same roots, and the Clubs were a loud, happy people. Jean spilt too much of his own blood on the ride down to think this is, this was a game, but while they were still riding in his familiar grass and rolling hills, it didn’t feel real, like the first snow’s arrival in the dead of summer.

As they marched slowly south, the terrain morphed from billowing grasslands to scrubs, more pale orange than green. It was gradual shift, one Jean was too busy to notice until he woke up one morning, crawled out of his tent, and choked on sand.

The dead isthmus was terrible for anything but ambushes. Scragged sand and limestone cliffs jutting out of sage and thorns, crooked trails that led only to wide open fields, sowed by blood and arrowheads each season. The only reason people were here at all was that this thin strip of land was the only thing that connected the two continents of the Cards, red and black to black and red. The Diamonds stayed away, like the slippery silvertongues they were, and the Hearts were too busy chomping away at the Spades’ dune desert to worry about this desolate curve. It was left to the squabbling of the black suits, Clubs to the north and Spades to the south, as they pushed at each other to keep the conquerors out, spread their cool influence further. It wasn’t called a war, not in the diplomatic tongue of the Diamonds. But in the dialects of the Clubs plains, seeping into their mountains, and across the multicolored Spades landscape, there was no distinction.

The cavalry troops' rattles were muffled as the desert folded in on them, the echoes of the horse’s shoes holding on for just a bit too long. Drills were done with tense shoulders and snapped directions; nighttime fires lost their laughter. Jean closed in on himself, caring for Sunstepper’s pale yellow hooves and little else. Every owl hoot and coyote bark made them jump. The days until they reached their assigned basecamp trickled down into the hollows of their spines, where the superstitious said poison and ill luck burrowed in to ferment.

They arrived at the camp at lesser sunset after two months of no one but themselves. The camp was set in the shade of a rock face, hollowed out underneath by time and a spring that rang metallic in their teeth. The evergreen and khaki of the camp exploded from the dull bands of yellow behind it, sprawling out from the shade in spinners. The tent crush, the crowd of horseflesh as they neared, pressed in on Jean and kept him close to these familiar faces. Sunstepper snorted under him, head tossing back; he relaxed his knees and stretched his fingers out from their stranglehold on the reins.

Their tag of reinforcements was received by an official with a gold Club pendant knocking against her mail stomach. The captain who’d led the troop down jumped off her horse’s back and met the official on the ground, talking in voices too low for Jean and those still mounted to hear. They’d drawn the mild attentions of the camp, some staring, some whispering. Jean shifted in his saddle and glared hard at Sunstepper’s black ears.

The official and the captain finished their conversation and turned to the troop, who all sat a little straighter in their saddles.

“Here is where we part ways,” the captain yelled in her field voice. “You will be assigned to the regiments that could best benefit from your individual skills. Use them well and wisely.” She folded her fist over the knot of her clan sash at her waist. “Mistress Ral has my recommendations.” She bent forward, horsetails flopping over her head. The troop – whatever they were now – returned the gesture. The captain led her gelding away, vanishing in the camp, and the official, Mistress Ral, stepped forward in her place, boots clacking on the sandstone.

“I’ll sort you all once I go over your captain’s orders,” she called, voice arching to the back of the pack. “For now, you must be hungry.” A general groan, and a smile. “Dismount, and I’ll lead you to the stables, then the mess.”

Jean slid off Sunstepper’s back and hooked the reins around his fingers, leading her with the rest in the flow of sweaty hides.

The large blond man to his left peered under his horse’s neck at Jean. “Where you think you’ll go?” Jean shrugged – shit, he’d never even thought about it. The other man grinned. “I hope I get out on the front lines, chopping up-”

“ _Reiner_.” An even larger, darker man with a mammoth horse to match cut him off. “You’re supposed to want to _live_.”

Reiner laughed, a boom. “Lighten up, Bertl, I won’t leave you behind.”  Bertl sighed, shoulders hunching.

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

* * *

All three of them ended up assigned to the scouts.

The scouts, apparently, were where all the crazy people went when they didn’t fit in anywhere else. They were loud and wild, even for the Clubs, and Jean spent more time brushing down Sunstepper, his sunflower, and clucking her about their problems than getting involved himself. It was a relief to be sent off with a six of them, covering their backs with his bow, to patrol the perimeter of the camp. At least it was quiet.

He saw his first Spade there, in the complete dark after greater sunset. The scouting six caught them struggling up the rocks, spitting and half-dead, Reiner’s spear through their belly. They had enough will to snarl in the squad leader’s face and flick out a gesture from their forehead before blood gurgled from their lips and they stiffened around the spearshaft. The squad leader snarled back at their grotesque frozen face and snapped the spear free. “Always twelve roaches in the wall for the one you see on the floor.” He flicked his eyes up and landed on Jean. “You. Back to camp. Report. We’ll follow this one’s tracks and try to find its nest.” Jean slapped his fist to his sash knot and rode back the way they came.

Night was different on the dead isthmus than in the plains. It chilled instantly, breath puffing, and the starlight cast deep blue divots in the cliffs and pockets. Jean had memorized the land’s lay in the first (boring) week at the camp, but it all looked odd in blue. He got twisted, Sunstepper’s shoes clopping through unfamiliar ravines.

Too long into it, he heard a distant, constant soughing - grasslands? No, too harsh for that. He kicked Sunstepper towards it, scowling. Individual crashes slipped in - definitely not grass.

They came around a bend in the ravine and stopped short. “Stars and suns.”

A dark expanse of glittering nothing exploded before him, cliff face dropping away only a few paces from Sunstepper’s hooves. The crashing came from below, varied enough to carry a rhythm. It smelled of salt and winter, wind pulling at Jean’s horsetails and carrying something heavy, something wet, up to him. _The ocean_. He’d heard of it, the camp talked, but his patrols had yet to take him in breathing distance. He inhaled it. Sure, he might be far off course, he might not know where the hell he was, but how could he worry about such details when water crashed and rolled beneath him no matter what battle clashed above it?

He turned his face to the wind and closed his eyes - he could almost pretend to be home. He tilted his head back and opened them to the stars. He was on the east side of the isthmus, he knew that. He could follow the stars home. He turned Sunstepper’s nose north, following the cliff - how could he leave the ocean’s side so soon?

Jean got lost staring out over the stars’ reflections and forgot to watch his way. His only warning was Sunstepper’s ears flicking forward as they crested a rise along the edge and met the faces of Spades around a campfire. Jean sucked in a breath and yanked Sunstepper around, but the shouts followed them, cacophonous and clashing against the ocean crash. Jean’s breath rushed in his head; all he heard was it, Sunstepper’s pants, and the rolling thunder below. An arrow whipped by his cheek.

He took the first gap in the cliffs he found, Sunstepper too loud, too loud as they raced over the brush and the rock, weaving in the shadows. More arrows, little air flicks. One punched his shoulder - he grunted, but the mail held, and it clattered away as the dull pain throbbed down his arm. They ran on.

Sunstepper jumped over a crack in the rock; Jean knew before she came down that they would land wrong. Her front hooves slipped on the edge, and they fell, caved, collapsed backwards into the gully, Sunstepper screaming – Jean screaming – dark.

He blacked out.

He came back to an exquisite pain firing up his everything. Sunstepper still breathed – he knew, every lung expansion sent a hot wave up his left leg, crushed under her ribs, ankle mangled in the stirrup. He gasped – couldn’t breathe – blood pounded out onto the rocks.

Heads gathered in the sliver of starlight above them, shouting in the mixmatched language. It spun Jean’s head tighter, tight around the red ache swimming everywhere. He tried to move out from under Sunstepper and cried out, her whinny equal. He blacked out again.

He woke slower this time, numb and cold. Sunstepper was still on his leg, pants shallow and quick. He pushed at her back, mouth open, air iron-clad.

“Sunflower, sungirl,” he whispered, stroking the flank he could find. “My greater and my lesser. I’m gonna need you to move.” She huffed. He slid his hands down her side, weak as he lifted. “C’mon sunshine, I know you can-” She shifted up. His gasp caught at the new spines in his throat, and he yanked too hard, stirrup catching his twisted foot, but, another shift – out. He dug his fingers in the rock by his head and retched, foul bile splattering out. He shook and prayed for the suns to stay away so he would never have to look.

“They’re coming back, you know.”

Jean jerked and almost fell in his vomit. Perched halfway up the ditch’s pitted wall was a boy, not over a twelvespan, draped in black and blue eyes brighter than any day, leaning on a staff too big for any shriveled tree Jean had ever seen. “Those men chasing you. They couldn’t get down, so they went to get more rope. But they’ll be back.” The boy jumped down and landed too lightly on his feet. Jean swallowed, pulse hard in his jaw.  

“Who the fuck are you?”

The boy smiled, white and blue and black (his skin was white but mottled by dark freckles, an inverted night sky). “You’ll never know.” The boy held out his staff, end to end. “You wanna get out of here?”

Jean blinked at the staff. “How can I trust some random kid out at night in a Houseless place like this?”

“You can’t.” The boy shrugged and lowered the staff, clipping Sunstepper’s shoulder as it fell. She didn’t react. Jean stared. “Yeah, your horse is dead.” Death sounded _wrong_ in his child voice. Jean hopped forward and fell to his good knee by her head, bad leg sprawled wide. He brushed her braided mane aside, her glass eyes reflecting a constellation.

“Oh.”

“Yep. Too bad, so sad.” The boy held out his staff again. “Now will you come?”

Jean stroked her lamb-soft ears, her coarse black cheek, her bloody gold mane. She’d gotten an arrow graze down her neck - when? When had his fingers started shaking?

A fat water drop landed on his hand. He looked up - oh. That was him. “I-I can’t-” He coughed, something strange in him rattling. “I can’t leave her like this. She’s not facing north.”

The boy groaned, leaning heavily on his staff. “Look, you can either die here with the dumb animal or you can come with me. Your choice.”

Jean shook. A fly buzzed in and landed on Sunstepper’s eye. He swatted it away, hitting her flesh in the process - _chilled_.

“Okay.” He took out his boot knife and cut out one of her braids from her mane, tucking it in his sash and the knife back in its sheath. The staff was shoved in his face; he latched on with trembling hands and hauled himself to his good foot. He cast one last look down, then turned away and followed the boy into a hole at the end of the ravine.

Jean hobbled, and the boy hopped, through a network of ravines and caves, sometimes under the thin lesser sun’s light, others so dark the boy had to guide him with a hand on the staff. Jean’s head was consumed by the fire of pain and grief, and he never bothered to ask where they were going.

They were approaching another patch of sunlight when Jean cleared his throat. “By the by. Thanks.”

“Huh?”

“For saving my life.”

The boy turned and grabbed the staff with both hands, grinning. Jean didn’t like that grin - was that roar the blood in his ears, or-

“Who said I was _saving_ you?”

The boy yanked him the last few paces – the sunlight patch was an opening in the side of the cliff over the ocean – the boy shoved Jean out, giggling, staff forced out of Jean’s hands as he teetered, stumbled, fell–

The ocean is not soft.


	2. Spyglass

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> {A/N: I did full body designs for pretty much everyone that shows up in this [here](http://carriecmoney.tumblr.com/post/97484855011). Don't let me do any more of this AU any time soon.  
> Also, slight forward note: this AU has developed so that nonbinary people are generally referred to as 'dragons'. It's some complicated stuff I don't want to explain, but just know that when I call Hange a dragon, they are not actually a giant lizard.}

Marco’s first Clubs captive spent two days bleeding out on his bed before he woke up.

At first, Marco barely had a moment to think on him. They – he and his two crew on their scout _Spyglass_ – had fished him out of the rocks along the cliff coast at greater sunrise, left leg mangled beyond recognition and mail weighing him down. That mail almost killed him, but the long embroidered sash around his waist caught between two rocks as the tide receded and held him away from drowning danger. They could have left him – they should have, he was half dead anyway – but Marco would never live with himself again if he did. So they hauled him aboard, dried him off, tossed his brine-laden mail coat overboard. Closely followed by his left foot.

The captive had been covered in dried blood despite the saltwater cleansing; it’d taken a full turn of the clock to get him clean enough to assess the real damage. Sasha whistled when she cut away his left boot – it made a terrible squelching when she tried to remove it normally – and examined his bent ankle. “What happened to this guy?”

“Something awful.” Marco turned his face away from the bared bone to the captive’s pale face – the palest he’d ever seen. “Let’s try and keep it to that.”

They couldn’t save the foot, in the end, and had to saw it off, holding their breath and disposing of it as soon as possible. None of them were surgeons, but the unnatural hang of the foot had been so much worse than the empty space. Connie was the one who sewed up the extra skin and cleaned it as much as they could - the leg above the gone foot was still broken and had to be set in four places – his hands were bloody rags – it went on–

Marco was shocked he only slept _two_ days and didn’t just slip on through to the stoop of the House on Marco’s pillow.

Marco happened to be belowdeck when he woke, eating supper and pouring over his chart to see how long they could put off their next fleet rendezvous. The captive groaned, long and low; Marco jumped and spun, bowl of spice rice in hand. Marco rushed to the stool by the bed and held the captive down with a hand on his chest. “No, don’t sit up, you’ll tear your stitches.” The captive looked up at him with blown-out eyes, bright orange and uncomprehending. He slurred out some syllables that might have been words, if he had been very drunk and gargled his consonants. Oh dear. Marco shook his head. The captive’s eyes flicked up to the silver bindi on Marco’s forehead; he jerked back, trying to scramble away, but he moved his left leg and gasped, crumpling back on the bed. Marco set his bowl on the corner of the chart - scouts had small cabins, even for the captain - and shushed at him, running his hand over the captive’s forehead. He flinched.

“ _Don’t you worry, don’t you fret, I will never hurt you, pet,_ ” Marco sang, an old lullaby. He hummed as he reached for the waiting water bucket and wet a cloth to wipe at the captive’s feverish face and neck. The captive sighed, all the tension blowing out of him. He opened his orange eyes again, slits, mouth parted. His eyebrows furrowed, lips moving. The next line of the lullaby, he sang along in his own throaty language, hoarse and scratchy. Marco paused and laughed, turning to the water bucket and dipping a tin cup in. He turned back around and slipped his hand under the captive’s head, missing the odd yellow braids there that couldn’t match the sun-bleached mop on top, and lifted enough to tilt the cup to his lips. The captive raised a hand to support, fingers over Marco’s rough and covered in bandages. When the cup was empty and Marco went for a refill, the captive stared at his fingers, pink and yellow seeping in spots. He turned his big eyes to Marco, hand caught in the air.

“Your hands are the least of your worries.” The captive’s thick eyebrows knit together. Marco chewed his cheek and brought his free hand to the blanket’s edge, turning it down to the captive’s feet - his foot. Marco set the cup aside and sat the captive up, inch by inch, as he winced and grimaced, eyes fluttering. Marco kept his arm there as the captive recaught his breath and opened his eyes. Choked.

Marco sat on the edge of the thin mattress and wrapped his arm firmer around the captive’s waist. The captive turned his face into Marco’s shoulder and _wailed_ , his splinted, incomplete leg twitching. Marco let him cry, holding him as close as he dared and humming the lullaby, until the captive wept himself back to sleep.

* * *

The next day and a night continued like that, lapses of unconsciousness and awareness. Sasha learnt his name was something like Jean, with a peculiar slur at the front that was four sounds in one. Jean, in return, bit on the _kuh_ s of Marco and Connie’s names, added another _h_ to the front of Sasha’s. He learned some basic words, like ‘water’ and ‘food’, and Marco responded, even if his accent was awful. But he was trying - distracting from his empty parts. And they were all stalling.

There was no way around it anymore. The _Spyglass_ had toured the same strip of rocks and beach for three days now, first to avoid a storm striking out farther to sea, then to mend a ripped sail, to swab the deck – anything. Sasha and Connie didn’t mind so much. They were lazy at heart and much preferred practicing their sword footwork on the little deck to doing any work. Marco’s window to report back to his main ship was closing soon, though. They’d come looking if he missed it.

After another awake spell from Jean, where he’d scarfed down some rice before passing out again, Marco met Sasha and Connie at the bow.

“I don’t want to turn him in.” Connie tugged at the leather earflaps that hung down from his headband. “He’s just a grunt, like us, and who knows what they’d do to him on the big boats? No way.”

“Same,” Sasha said from her perch on the railing, leaning heavily on her unstrung bow. “Besides, he seemed to really know his way around an arrow when I let him look at mine. I’d like to see what those clover-headed horselords know about archery.”

Marco sighed and tugged on the short hairs on the back of his neck. “I feel the same, but if we don’t tag up soon, it’s not gonna end well. And there’s not good place to hide him here.”

“And he’s way too pale to fake a Spade, even if we found something blue to fit’em.” Sasha blew her bangs away from her face. “It’ll be a few weeks until his leg’s walkable.”

“He needs a doctor. There’s too many open wounds; if any of those get infected, he’ll lose more than the foot.” Marco shuddered. “You know the Queen won’t care enough about him to give him that.”

They all grimaced at the deck. Sasha groaned and wrapped an ankle around her bow. “There’s always the Solitaire Islands, I guess.”

“And how would we get there without being branded as traitors? We’d never make there and back again fast enough to avoid suspicion, and we’re running out of supplies.”

Connie shrugged. “Well, we kinda already are, right? I mean, we should’ve turned Jean in _days_ ago, right? Well.” He drummed his heels on the deck. Marco’s stomach twisted.

“Oh. I guess so, technically.” Marco pressed his heel to his temple. “Crap.”

“Ah, don’t get too down, cap.” Sasha nudged him with her bow. “I bet they never even noticed we were gone.”

Marco frowned. “That’s an idea.” He leant on the railing and looked out over the ocean, slate blue today and choppy. His two crew waited while he thought, fingers drumming on the warped wood. He knocked twice on it and turned back around. “This’ll be kind of crazy.”

“Only kind of?”

“And it’ll probably end in deserting the royal navy, so if they catch us we’re dead.”

“Only joined this outfit for the free food, anyway.”

Marco wrinkled his nose, rubbed at his right shoulder – he could swear his tunic changed colors there after Jean had sobbed into it. “He needs me. Needs us.”

“No shit, fella can’t walk.” Sasha flicked the end of her braid across her palm. “Plus, we cut off his foot. Kinda feel like we owe him something.”

“Hey, _I_ cut off his foot!”

“It was a group effort!”

Marco chuckled. “All right, kids, settle down. Here’s what I was thinking we could do.”

* * *

It only occurred to Marco after they’d set off from the shore that maybe he should ask Jean’s opinion on the matter.

Jean was still too weak to sit up on his own for too long, so Marco liked to prop him up on his shoulder while they ate. It helped Jean relax, and the press of him on Marco’s side helped him gauge how his patient - he wasn’t a captive anymore - was doing. He was a little warmer today. Marco’s brow furrowed as he took Jean’s empty bowl from his and set it on the table. “Do you wanna go home?” Jean turned his head to look at him, face too close. His eyes were more brown today. (They hadn’t been as startlingly orange since that first time awake.) Marco bit his lip and mimed a roof, hands slanted together. “Home. You? Go?”

Jean squinted – jerked. Said a word in his language, hand on his chest.

“Uh. Maybe?” Marco laughed out of nerves, dropped his hands. Jean’s mouth twitched. He turned his face away, hair brushing Marco’s jaw, and shook his head. He mumbled something, bandaged fingers stroking down one of the three sun-yellow braids that hung down his neck. Marco bent in. “Sorry?”

One word. He kicked at the empty space below his left leg under the blanket. _Gone_. “Oh.”

Jean’s head hung, braid clutched tight. Marco let him mope for a moment, sliding his shoulder out from behind him and holding him up with a hand as he pulled the chart off the desk and into Jean’s lap.

“We’re about here.” Marco pointed at a point off the coast of the isthmus, about halfway between the continents. “We’re sailing to here.” He drew a line with his finger across the sea to the Solitaire Islands, clustered to the northwest of the main Hearts island. “With a stop here for supplies.” He tapped a spot short of halfway there, where the fleet was slated to be. Jean traced his fingers over the Heart symbol on the main island, turned his confused eyes to Marco – tapped the Spade-shaped bindi between Marco’s eyebrows three times. Marco jumped a little, but smiled.

“That might be too much to explain right now.” Jean blinked. “But I can try.”

``````

The check in with the fleet was anticlimactic, and it convinced Marco that maybe they’d really be able to desert the navy without anyone batting an eyelash. Marco reported aboard the ship they were consort to, the _Silveredge_ , without a hitch – besides Jean, their trip had been uneventful. The quartermaster barely even looked up from his shorthanded notes as he took Marco’s chart and waved Marco away with orders to scout further down the coast and report back in two weeks. Fantastic.

Sasha and Connie had reloaded the _Spyglass_ for their assigned venture while he was reporting, and were stashing their rice and salt pork below as they exchanged the usual insults with the hands on the _Silveredge_. They’d head out as soon as everything was secure, and save Jean’s health from a night spent in the grip of the enemy.

Marco took the new (unnecessary) chart into his cabin, careful not to open the door too fast or too far. Jean was crowded against the wall, splinted leg the only part of him not curled up. Marco sighed and set the new chart down on his desk. “You’ll just get sicker, worrying like that.”

Jean didn’t get his words, but he got his tone. He glared and snapped something in his language – _how would you like this?_

“M’sorry about this.” Marco found Jean’s surviving boot and the knife still stashed there, pulling it out of its sheath and handing it to Jean, hilt-first. “I’m gonna go up and check on things.” He pointed up as Jean stared at the knife, took it in a tremoring hand. Marco smiled. “Back soon?” Jean nodded, staring at his knife, knuckles white around the green-wrapped grip. He blinked up at Marco, eyes orange. Marco sucked in a breath, took a step away. “No one’ll hurt you again, I swear.”

And he ran, out to the deck to do the act of nothing’s wrong and shake off the burn of orange eyes.

* * *

It was a five day sail across open water to get from the Cards mainland to the Hearts archipelago, and another two to weave between the little volcanoes to the Solitaire Islands. It was a busy byway, with Hearts communications and transports ferrying its people from its islands to its mainland desert chunk, and independent floaters and fishers winnowing between. Hearts’ waters were tricky to be in when not decked in red, as they had a nasty habit of slavery. But they were just three (four?) and they’d stripped all the Spade from the _Spyglass_ they could as soon as they were over the horizon from the fleet. Hopefully they’d be fine until the shelter of the Solitaire Islands.

At night, with only the other ships’ distant lights flickering on the glittering waves, they brought Jean abovedeck to get some fresh air, leaning on Marco (the only one big enough to carry his weight). When the salt air hit him, he sighed, closing his eyes and fisting his hand in Marco’s tunic.

He had no energy left after five days confined to Marco’s bed. After only a few minutes of standing at the rail, he turned his face into Marco’s shoulder, breathing hard. Marco eased them down, leaning back against the rail with Jean tucked to his side when Jean refused to let him go. Sasha took the first watch, manning the sail and the rudder while Connie hung his hammock across the bow and conked out instantly.

It was quiet on the _Spyglass_ for a long while, just Jean’s unsteady panting and Connie’s snoring. When Jean’s face relaxed and he slumped softer against Marco’s shoulder, Sasha looked up at the stars and adjusted the sail a little tighter. “Hey, cap?”

“Mmm?”

“What’re we gonna do when we get there? Once we get the horselord here to a real doctor and make sure he doesn’t die’n all that?” She kept her eyes out over the ocean and her voice low. Marco shrugged with his free shoulder, rubbing at the empty spot on his forehead where his bindi usually stuck.

“Whatever you want.” Jean was slipping down; Marco shifted him up with a hitch of his arm. This kid slept like the dead. He’d be worried if Jean wasn’t breathing right on his neck and standing his hair on end with every exhale. “The _Spyglass_ ’ll probably get impounded once we get there. If not, I’m selling it and using it to the doctor and you two’s wages. It’s safer that way.” Jean’s sleeping grip in his tunic tightened, knuckles brushing the open V of Marco’s chest. At least he didn’t have to worry about falling asleep himself. ‘You’n Connie can do whatever, go wherever. The world’s yours.” Sasha’s braid whipped in a gust of wind. “I’m gonna stay with Jean, until I get him settled.” Sasha shot him a sidelong look. He looked away, Jean’s body heat scorching his side. “it’s not like I’d _leave_ him like this.”

“No. That’s not your way.” The wind shifted, and Sasha scrambled to adjust the sail. “And that’s why I’m coming with you.”

Marco smiled. “Really?”

“Cap, you’re a good guy. You’ve always looked out for me and Con, even before we became your sticking crew. I’m not gonna jump ship just ‘cause your commanding officer changes.” She grinned over her shoulder. “Spades never did much for me, anyway. I think it’s about damn time I try on a new suit for size.”

Marco relaxed, cheek brushing Jean’s hair – coarse and dirty. He really needed a bath. “What about Connie?”

“He’s with me.” She flashed a grin at him. “What else d’you expect?”

Marco laughed; Jean stirred. Marco turned to him, felt his cheek – uh-oh. “I’m gonna get him below.” Sasha came over to help him stand up, careful with the leg as Jean groaned and blinked awake. When they were straight up, Marco slipped his free hand down Sasha’s upper arm. “Thanks.”

“Of course.” She winked and went back to the rudder, sighing as she settled in for the night. Marco and Jean inched down the deck and back to the only bed on the boat.

* * *

By the time they got in sight of Hearts, Jean was running a fever and his ankle stub was infected.

They cleaned out the wound four times a day and always changed the bandage, but being out at sea was never the best place to be injured. Jean went back to his earlier ways of spells of unconsciousness, tossing and turning and making his leg even worse in his sleep. The three of them were on frantic duty to keep the _Spyglass_ on target as swift as possible and also trying to nurse Jean long enough for real medicine and a trained hand to fix him. He was sweating all over Marco’s bed, making little whimpering noises that clutched at Marco’s heart, and all he could do was wipe down Jean’s face and pray.   

They were close to lost in the maze of Hearts when a cutter with grey sails came up on their side and a man with a yellow ponytail propped his bare foot up on the rail. “Y’en get business n’the Solitaire Islands, kith?”

Marco drew the back of his hand over his forehead. “Yes – we need a doctor, we’ve got an injured man aboard in a fever. Know where we can find them?”

“Aye.” The man kicked off the rail and shouted something back to the others on deck, language slipping between recognizable and non. Marco flicked his eyes to Connie – Sasha was tending to Jean below – who shrugged. Ponytail guy came back soon, though, and vaulted over his railing onto the deck of the _Spyglass_. He grinned at Marco. “P’mission ta come aboard?”

Marco laughed. “Granted.” He flicked his fingers out from his forehead. “Marco Bodt, captain of the _Spyglass_. For the moment.”

Ponytail raised an eyebrow. “Y’en Spaden folk?”

“Ah- yes.”

“Then why’n ye go’on to ye’s kin?”

Marco rubbed his nose. “Well – our invalid, he’s a bit – green, about the gills.” Ponytail blinked. Marco sighed. “He’s a Club.”

“Oh. Oh!” Ponytail snapped a few times. “I’n gettin’ on. Wha’ken a doc y’en been needin’, then?”

“A- surgeon?” Marco ran a hand through his hair. “Someone good with – missing limbs.”

Ponytail hissed. “Ach, ow. N’know justa sticker.” He yanked his thumb back at his cutter. “Hen in ta me, I’ll take ye on.”

“Oh, thank ye, uh-”

“Erd. A’the _Ashen_. K’en, we’re not ta far.”

The ‘sticker’, as Erd put it, was a crazy dragon with mismatched colored clothing and protective eyewear on. They were on the roof of their house when the _Spyglass_ docked at their little pier, tending to the herb garden that grew there. Erd hailed them from the cutter’s deck, hovering in the deeper parts of the tiny bay. The dragon hopped down to the sand and ran out to the edge of the pier, leaning out. “What?”

“These’ens are fa you! There’s a stubber on deck!”

“Oh, ye?” The dragon turned to the _Spyglass_ crew, eyewear glinting. “But these’ens all get their parts!”

“He’s below,” Marco said, pointing to the _Spyglass_. “He’s got a broken leg and an infect foot – ex-foot – and a fever-”

“Spaden?” The dragon laughed and waved back at Erd’s ship. “Thank ye, gen! I gets’in it fra here!”

Erd gave one last wave before turning back to his crew, and soon, they were headed out of the dragon doctor’s beach and back to their catching duty. The dragon flipped back to them, smile side.

“Now! What’s this about a missing foot?”

* * *

The dragon’s name was Hange, and they were slightly insane. But they knew how to fix Jean.

Transporting an unconscious, splinted soldier into Hange’s house had been an interesting hour, the midday suns beating heat into their backs. Marco explained what he knew of Jean’s situation as they carted him down the dock, including that he couldn’t really speak through the language barrier. Hange almost dropped Jean’s shoulders in their glee at having both a medical subject and another person to practice with one he woke. Among many things, Hange was a student of the Cards’ languages.

When they finally got Jean steeled on the set in Hange’s side sickroom, the dragon kicked them out while they examined the damage alone. Stuck in a foreign house on a spit of sand and mangroves that could barely be termed an island, the three of the _Spyglass_ sat on the end of the dock and tossed their old dreams like stones across the water.

The lesser sun had just sank into the sea when another ship, a little boat like theirs with the _Ashen_ ’s grey sails, swept around the arm of the bay and coasted in to the other side of the dock from the _Spyglass_. The three on the pier watched it sail in, the suns’ hot lullaby pinning them to their spots.

The first one to disembark from the new ship that reeked of fish was a dark boy in familiar blues and big green eyes that he turned on the _Spyglass_ crew. “Who th’hell’re _you_?”

“Eren, be nice.” A smaller, paler kid followed him, yellow hair falling out of the puff tail at his neck. The yellow kid smiled at them. “Y’en here fa Hange, ye?”

“Yes- ye.” Damn this weird sailor talk. “They’ve been at it for hours.”

The darker one, Eren, whistled. “Bes’ nata tick ‘em, then, Hange been getting’ touchy ‘bout that.”

“Boys!” The third crew, a girl with gold skin and slanted eyes – a Hearts native, then – waved a rope end at them. The two scrambled to help; Marco stood and did the same. Sasha and Connie stayed put, flicking water at each other with their toes.

They got the boat tied up and the catch offloaded. Eren wiped the back of his hand on his forehead. Marco’s spine relaxed a fraction. “Thanks, ken.” Eren’s eyes darted over Marco’s face, caught the Spade-shaped tanline that hadn’t quite burned away. Eren grinned. “You got away, too?”

“Away from where?”

“The slavers, a’course, who else?”

“Uh, the Navy? That’s where we came from.” Marco gestured back at Sasha and Connie, who flicked out from their foreheads at Eren. He returned the gesture with a shrug.

“Most of the rejects that wash up on Hange’s shore are runaways, that’s all.”

“ _Eren_.”

“What? S’true!” The yellow kid rubbed at one eye and smiled at Marco.

“Sorry about him. I’m Armin, nice to meet you.” He tilted his chin up, exposing the orange choker and the yellow beads hanging down, hair ornament clacking. _A Diamond, on this side of the dead isthmus?_ Marco smiled back.

“You’re a little far from home.” Armin jerked up a shoulder.

“Things happen.”

“So.” The Hearts girl crossed her arms and leveled her eyes at Marco. “What’s ta deal with y’en?”

Marco tugged at the hair on the back of his head. “Short story or long?”

Armin laughed, a delicate tinkling. “Long, but let’s do it at the house, ye? We can see how Hange’s faring with whatever poor soul needed them.” Marco rapped his forehead with two knuckles – maybe he could put his bindi back on now, he felt naked without it – and clicked for his crew to follow.

* * *

Days slipped by on Hange’s island. Jean recovered from the infection under their care, but he was still weak, broken, and footless. He and Hange talked in broken Clubs in the sickroom – Hange hadn’t had a lot of practice with Clubs, as the horselords hated the ocean. Armin, too, provided communication comfort, as Diamonds was the closest of the Cards to the Clubs and shared a basic vocabulary. Jean’s story of before the ocean seeped out through them – a draft, a horse, a child, a fall. Hange theorized that the child was a Joker, and everyone in the room recoiled. Jokers were malicious little spirits that roamed the Cards and caused destruction and mayhem in their wakes – Jean had met a Joker one-on-one and _lived_.

He just slurped his soup while they all stared at him, deep blue bags under his eyes.

The other three and their boat (“The _Piece of Shit_ ,” Eren said with a kick to the hull) spent most days drifting in the Islands, fishing for coin and Hange’s table while keeping an eye out for Hearts slavers. The three of them had met on a rice plantation in the highlands of one of the proper Hearts islands, each enslaved for their own reasons, and had broken out together several years ago, taking the boat with them. Now they worked to unchain others, one slave at a time.

(“There’s a network of us,” Armin told Marco over fish on the dock as they cleaned them for supper. “We lay over the Solitaire Islands, keeping them safe, biting at what we can.” He shook off his knife into the water, clear and five shades of turquoise in Hange’s bay. “Hange lets us bed down here because of me – they couldn’t resist their first Diamond.” He winked.

Marco sliced a long fillet off a snapper. “Think they’d extend the courtesy to their first Club?”

Armin shrugged and watched the waiting fish in the water fight over the guts of another.)

After a few days of walking funny on land, Sasha and Connie begged Marco’s blessing to take the _Spyglass_ out with the others. He gave it, but stayed back with Hange, Jean, and his browning eyes, day after humid day.

One morning after the others had left, the three of them were sitting in the main room of the house, Jean carding wool (Hange said he was used to it) in a chair, legs sprawled; Hange making up more of the poultice for his stub; and Marco brewing up a fish stew for everyone’s dinner. Marco hung the spoon by the fire and stepped away from its circle of heat, wiping his face with the shoulder of his tunic. Jean looked up at the movement, a smile narrowing his eyes, and looked back down at his wool. Marco watched him for a few more seconds before joining Hange at their table, sitting in Jean’s blind spot.

“Hange?”

They looked up, sliding their eyewear to their forehead. “Ye?”

Marco crossed his forearms on the table and propped his chin on them. “How long do you think we can stay with you? I don’t want to overstay our welcome.”

Hange smiled. “If you think Jean is leaving me before he can walk again, you’ve got another think coming, kith.” They dropped their pestle in the mortar. “As for you’n yours. As long as you keep working, you can stay here as long as you like. I won’t fight the help.” They smiled, twirling their ponytail around their hand. “But I don’t think you’ll like that for long. You’re too young to stay here, for long.”

Marco hummed and rested his cheek on his elbow. “Yes. You’re right.” He sighed, looking out the window on the crystal blue sky. “We’ll find an occupation.”

“I think it’s already found you.” They winked. “The Solitaire Islands talk to us, when you get lost in them.”

Marco sat up. “In case I don’t say it again. Thank you for your hospitality, doctor.” Hange snorted.

“Just ‘Hange’ is fine, thanks so much.” They ground their pestle into their herbs again. “It’s been a pleasure.”

Marco smiled and stood, going over to where Jean was sitting and pulling up a chair, gesturing for him to hand over the carding brushes and teach him how to do it.

````````````

That evening, when the two boats come home to Hange’s bay carrying a load of runaways, ribs poking and wrists bruised, Marco rolls up his sleeves and gets to work.


End file.
